Climate Change, features and articles | Educational Science

Jun 30, 2019

Last Month Was the Hottest June on Earth Ever Recorded

If you thought last month felt really, really hot, you were right. June 2019 was the hottest June on record for the globe. And, it was the second month in a row that balmy temperatures caused Antarctic sea ice coverage to reach a record low. The sizzling average land and...

Jun 30, 2019

The First Glacier Killed by Climate Change Is Getting a Haunting Memorial in Iceland

Vikings thought it was a dead troll. Now, it's just dead ice. Okjökull (or just Ok, for short) is one of 400 ancient glaciers crowning the mountains of Iceland — at least, it was, until global warming shrank it so much that Ok officially lost its glacier status in 2014....

May 31, 2019

Arctic Permafrost Is Going Through a Rapid Meltdown — 70 Years Early

In the Canadian Arctic, layers of permafrost that scientists expected to remain frozen for at least 70 years have already begun thawing. The once-frozen surface is now sinking and dotted with melt ponds and from above looks a bit like Swiss cheese, satellite images reveal. We were astounded that this...

May 31, 2019

'Flesh-Eating' Bacteria May Be Spreading to Beaches Once Thought Off-Limits. Here's Why.

Flesh-eating bacteria that live in the ocean may be spreading to previously unaffected beach waters thanks to climate change, according to a new report. The report authors described five cases of severe flesh-eating bacterial infections in people who were exposed to water or seafood from the Delaware Bay, which sits...

Apr 30, 2019

Octopuses May Go Blind As Climate Change Sucks Oxygen Out of the Ocean

Editor's Note: This story was updated at 11:20 a.m. E.D.T. on Friday, May 17 Turning light particles into visual information is hard work, and your body relies on oxygen to get the job done. This is true whether you walk the land on two limbs or swim through the sea...

Dec 31, 2018

More Than 250,000 People May Die Each Year Due to Climate Change

In the coming decades, more than a quarter-million people may die each year as a result of climate change, according to a new review study. In 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that climate change would lead to about 250,000 additional deaths each year between 2030 and 2050, from...

Dec 31, 2018

The Greenland Ice Sheet Is Melting at Astonishing Rate

Last week, a cauldron of concerning news articles made two things very clear: The ocean is warming and Antarctica's ice is melting. Now, a new study shows how much global warming is pounding another area: Greenland. Greenland's ice sheet is not only melting, but it's melting faster than ever because...

Nov 30, 2020

How will sea levels change with climate change?

Sea level rise is not a new phenomenon. For much of the 20th century, the global mean sea level has been inching upward — about 0.05 inches (1.4 millimeters) per year, according to the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Global mean sea level is an average of all...

Nov 30, 2020

Ötzi the Iceman may have scaled ice-free Alps

Ötzi the Iceman, a Copper Age wanderer found mummified in the Alps nearly three decades ago, may have lived at a time when the glaciers were advancing down from the highest peaks to the lower slopes of the mountains. The ice that preserved Ötzi upon his death in about 3300...

Jul 31, 2020

Two Canadian ice caps have completely vanished from the Arctic, NASA imagery shows

On frosty Ellesmere Island, where Arctic Canada butts up against the northwestern edge of Greenland, two once-enormous ice caps have completely vanished, new NASA imagery shows. It's no mystery where the caps, known as the St. Patrick Bay ice caps, went. Like many glacial features in the Arctic — which...

May 31, 2020

Siberian town records 100 degree F day — the hottest in Arctic history

Siberia — the land of black snow, blood rain and spontaneous solar eclipses — may have just set a dire new climate record. On Saturday (June 20), temperatures in the far-north town of Verkhoyansk broke 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) for the first time, according to news reports. If...

Jan 31, 2020

World's richest person, Jeff Bezos gives $10 billion to fight climate change

The fight against climate change is getting a big infusion of cash. The world's richest person, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, announced on Monday (Feb. 17) that he's starting an organization devoted to that pressing cause — and he's putting in $10 billion of his own money to get it off...

Nov 30, 2021

UN confirms hottest temperature ever recorded in the Arctic

The highest temperature ever recorded in the Arctic has been officially confirmed by the United Nations' World Meteorological Organization (WMO), sounding ''alarm bells'' about climate change. The temperature, a ''Mediterranean'' 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) — which was recorded in the Siberian town of Verkhoyansk in June 2020 —...

Sep 30, 2021

Climate change is making Earth dimmer

Earth is reflecting less light as its climate continues to change, new research suggests. A beautiful phenomenon connects climate and brightness: clouds. Clouds are a notoriously complicated piece of the climate puzzle — scientists struggle to model how clouds will respond to climate change and how those responses in turn...

Jul 31, 2021

July 2021 was officially the hottest month ever

July 2021 was officially the hottest month in recorded history, according to new data released Friday (Aug. 13) by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Last month, the combined land and ocean-surface temperature was 1.67 degrees Fahrenheit (0.93 degrees Celsius) higher than the 20th-century average, blowing past the previous...